The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

(Paperback)

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Description

The seminal novel about the Armenian genocide and one village's resistance - an enthralling, crackling epic Franz Werfel's masterpiece tells the true story of the inhabitants of six Armenian villages on the mountain of Musa Dagh, who choose to defy the deportation order of the Turkish government and are subsequently besieged on the mountainside. Told through the eyes of Gabriel Bagradian, a cosmopolitan Armenian who has returned to his home village with his French wife and son after years living in Europe, the novel is a rich and dramatic epic that powerfully argues for the value of resistance even in impossible circumstances.

Reviews

Forty Days will invade your senses and keep the blood pounding. Once read, it will never be forgotten * The New York Times *
In every sense a true and thrilling novel... It tells a story which it is almost one's duty as an intelligent human being to read. And one's duty here becomes one's pleasure also * New York Times Book Review *
Werfel's book ... did more than the efforts of any diplomat, journalist, or historian to encourage speech about the unspeakable. It arrives today as a timely reminder that savagery thrives in silence * The Barnes and Noble Review *
A crackling read. Symphonic in its handling of profound themes, respectful of its most vacillating characters, Werfel's novel is a grand and satisfying story about the necessities and difficulties of leadership * Booklist *

Author Bio

Franz Werfel (born 1890) was already a successful writer when in 1933 he published The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, inspired by the desperate plight of Armenian children he had seen working in a Syrian carpet factory. A bestseller and Werfel's masterpiece, the book brought the Armenian genocide to the world's attention for the first time but was burned by the Nazis. Werfel, an Austrian Jew, was forced to flee Europe, narrowly escaping with his life. He died in Los Angeles in 1945.